On this show, we often talk about breaking a problem down into smaller tasks, and in today's episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with [Andrew Ofstad](https://twitter.com/aofstad?lang=en), who a co-founder of Airtable. Airtable is the future of data management, specifically spreadsheet data management, and in part two of this two-part episode, we discuss some of the learnings Andrew has discovered along his journey into Airtable.
On this show, we often talk about breaking a problem down into smaller tasks, and in today's episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with Andrew Ofstad, who a co-founder of Airtable.
Airtable is the future of data management, specifically spreadsheet data management, and in part two of this two-part episode, we discuss some of the learnings Andrew has discovered along his journey into Airtable.
Today's episode is sponsored by Linode.
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Today's episode is full of all of the things that you come to expect from Developer Tea. And if you are just now listening for the very first time and you end up enjoying this episode, I encourage you go ahead and subscribe in whatever podcasting app you use, because this is a perfect example of the kinds of things that we talk about on Developer Tea. This is the second part of my interview with Andrew Ofsted, the co-founder of Airtable. If you haven't listened to the first part, I encourage you to go ahead and listen to that first, just in case you end up feeling a little bit lost in this episode without the context of that first one. Thank you so much for listening. Now let's get into the interview with Andrew Ofsted. So I talked to a guest on the show. His name is Khaled Azad. He created betterexplained.com, which is... A site that's essentially dedicated to making math interesting again. That's my version of what Khaled Azad does. And one of the things that he talks about is his method for learning. And I actually want to know a little bit more about your style of learning and how you kind of bring, for example, you mentioned mental models. I assume that that's a big deal for you and for people who work at Airtable. But before we get to that, his model is called the Adeptive Learning Model. Adeptive Learning Model. Adeptive Learning Model. and I don't know, I don't believe that he created it. I can't remember. But essentially, you start by creating an analogy. So tell me what it's like, right? Give me some kind of thing that I can hold on to that I already understand that I can kind of use as a comparison. Yep. Then he says, give me a diagram, help me visualize it. Give me something that shows me kind of a 10,000 foot view. What does this thing look like? Mm-hmm. Then he talks about an example. Let me experience this. Let me actually see. So, you know, applying this to machine learning, you can say, oh, well, machine learning is kind of like a prediction machine, right? Yep. It creates a prediction. It guesses based on some kind of information that you give it. It guesses something on the other side. And then, you know, you could diagram that. You could give an example that helps somebody actually experience what it's like when machine learning is correct. You know? Yeah. And then also what it's like when it's wrong. And then plain English is the next step. So describe it with everyday words, which is going to be very similar to something like an analogy. And then finally, the technical definition is kind of the most granular piece of the puzzle, discussing the formal details. Yeah. This is such a cool way of thinking and learning. I'd love to know, Andrew, in your experience, you know, do you approach learning intentionally, for example? Do you have a regimen that you follow? How do you continuously grow? Do you believe that continuous growth is important? Yeah, that's a great question. I guess I sort of have always been a pretty visual thinker. So I sort of the second part of what you just said really resonates where it's kind of, you know, kind of building that visualization in your head. And I like the idea of trying to experience that as well. And I think it's really important to have that visualization in your head. So I definitely do that. And I would say, like, you know, a lot of time when I'm doing creative work, a big chunk of that is just sort of, like, what I think of as kind of booting up and just kind of building that model in my head and sort of, like, reading all the, you know, from, like, sort of working on a feature or something in the product, just kind of, like, getting all the data in there and sort of, like, reading all the feedback from customers or whatever, and kind of just, like, get setting the context, and then kind of, like, building up that mental model, where you can actually kind of see something. And then from there, you can actually kind of run simulations and say like, you know, if I were to come in and do this, like what would happen? What would happen in this scenario? What would happen in that scenario? And actually just kind of visualize how things would play out. So I think like, yeah, I think learning for me a lot of times is the process of kind of like booting up and building that mental model and being able to visualize something. I like the idea of trying to kind of, you know, communicate that afterwards. And I think it's in a medical school where there's kind of like this concept of the way you learn something is, first of all, you like read it or study it, and then you actually like do it. So, you know, if you're like learning some surgery, first of all, just kind of read the book and like, okay, I got that. This is how you do it. And then afterwards you go actually practice it. So, you know, eventually you're kind of like under supervision and practicing the surgery and trying it for the first time. And then after that, the way you really learn it is teaching it to somebody else. So if you're like a resident in medical school, you are then required to sort of teach that to the, you know, upcoming med students. So that's the kind of a process they use. And I think it makes a lot of sense, like the sort of teaching it is kind of the last component to make sure that you understand it. And it's like another, yeah, I also like this kind of problem solving trick for developers, like the rubber duck to buggy, where it's just kind of like talking through a problem a lot of times will kind of lead you to the solution and make sure like communicating something is one way to make sure that you kind of know all the moving pieces of it. I think like another way that at Airtable, we put a lot of emphasis on is just kind of writing stuff. So, you know, I think Jeff Bezos at Amazon said this, but like writing is thinking. And, you know, I guess famously at Amazon, before you go to a meeting, like you're required to write up a two page memo. And, you know, part of that is to save people's time in the meeting. So they can read it beforehand and then discuss the sort of meaty topics that are in that memo. But I think a big part of it too, is basically the process of writing requires you to think about something in a very detailed level. And not only that, but it requires you to communicate it and sort of teach it to somebody else. And as you mentioned, that's sort of like one of the best ways to learn a problem and make sure that you're thinking through it comprehensively. Wow, I love that concept of requiring some level of writing, even if it's just a five sentence, like a single paragraph would go a long way. I don't know that I can convince somebody to write a two page memo, but certainly if you're Jeff Bezos, then I assume that people will listen to him. But man, that is a really interesting concept to bring people into that thought process and say, hey, you know what? Let's not start thinking when we walk in the door for the meeting. Let's get a little bit of that loaded into memory before we get in. Yep. And yeah, it's sort of the, you know, also a reaction to the PowerPoint culture. And Edward Tufte talks about this a lot in one of his books. But basically, you know, a PowerPoint is this very condensed form of information and low density way to communicate. And so like you can sort of get by creating a PowerPoint that doesn't have a lot of depth or thought into it. Whereas if you really write something down, you have to connect all the pieces and really kind of put a much deeper, a little thought into something than you might if you just had to toss together, like, a PowerPoint with a few bullet points, you know? So I think that's one of the other motivations for the kind of written memo thing. Yeah. I have a few questions for you before we round this thing out. I want to make sure I get to all of them. I think let's switch gears a little bit to a completely different kind of avenue. I'd love for you to talk about a time, if you can, a time where you feel like you were either, you were aimless or you didn't really know exactly what to do, where to go. Maybe you had a significant failure that you're willing to talk about or something like that, that really kind of defined for you something important. Maybe you had a breakthrough where you figured out something about yourself or about the work you were doing that was enlightening for you. Can you talk about a low point? Yeah, I guess like going back to college maybe, I sort of had this conception that I sort of was into, as I mentioned back in high school, I kind of got into software because of video games, but then sort of went into college thinking that I kind of wanted to work on the hardware side of things. So I kind of studied electrical engineering and I sort of, I think I looked around at a lot of the things that, you know, other people graduating in electrical engineering were doing and it wasn't, it didn't seem too interesting. I think because you sort of kind of work on a very tiny piece of kind of a larger, you know, project and a lot of times kind of, you know, companies that really aren't doing much innovative, much in terms of innovation. And so, yeah, I think at that point I felt a little bit like, you know, like maybe I sort of like always had this sort of idea that I really just kind of wanted to work on something where you're sort of like, you know, actually making more of a direct impact on people's lives through creating something new and doing something very creative. And I sort of thought that, you know, as electrical engineer and, you know, studying economics, like I was kind of starting to look at jobs that just didn't really, you know, kind of feel like they had that creative aspect. So, you know, jobs in, like, you know, jobs in, like, consulting, for example, and sort of like, yeah, just kind of standard electrical engineering jobs, like places like Intel and stuff like that. And, you know, I just, I guess I just wasn't too thrilled about that career trajectory. And I was sort of like kicking myself for not, you know, studying computer science. But and this is kind of like getting towards my junior year. And I had friends who were kind of at that point, you know, it's back in 2008. So not a lot of people were actually, you know, too hot on startups. And there wasn't kind of the same cashier on that as there is today. But I had a friend that went to work for Google and, you know, talked about how amazing it was. And I was just like, man, that sounds great. Like you work on these small teams, you actually kind of, you know, it's a very, you can actually have a big impact. And as a engineer or a product manager designer at these tech companies, you can sort of, you know, just from nothing create products that just impact, you know, millions of people. And that seems super appealing to me, but I, I was, you know, I was just kind of like, you know, I'm not a tech guy. I'm not a tech guy. I'm not a tech guy. I'm just sort of not exactly in that path. So I kind of like shifted gears and got, you know, kind of switched, you know, with my curriculum more over to computer science and really just kind of like started working on side projects and doubling down on that stuff. And yeah, so I think that was sort of a transition. And since then I've sort of been, you know, kind of on this, this kind of, you know, in the software space and, you know, such a, such a great medium to work in just because without any capital, you can just go and create something that impacts a lot of people, as I mentioned, whereas that's not the case in other industries. Now, now looking back, I guess there, there are a lot of cool stuff, you know, companies you could build if you're electrical engineer and cool projects you could work on. But I guess for a while, like, you know, it was kind of like a bit of a listlessness that you had mentioned where it's, you know, kind of like, oh, maybe this isn't, I've been studying this for a few years. Probably isn't what I want to do. Like, how do I kind of change tack a little bit? Right. Yeah. And that can happen. With, with software development, especially because it starts to, it kind of can be a self-feeding thing where you get really interested in software development and then you're developing software because you want to develop software. And so a lot of developers that I know have, you know, they, they end up working in a job where the development process is really particularly interesting, or maybe the tool set is really interesting, but eventually that spark for that particular tool set runs out and then they're kind of left with whatever the company is doing. And that can be really difficult. That can be a really difficult place to end up in because, you know, you ultimately, the only way is to either really love and appreciate what the company is doing or to innovate on the tool set. And so that, that leaves you in kind of a constrained position if you don't love what the company's doing. And if the company is relatively invested in the tool set, then it becomes a little bit more difficult. It becomes kind of a difficult spot to be in. But I think that's really important to recognize upfront that software development is such a, kind of a polymorphic thing, no pun intended, but truly polymorphic in the sense that, you know, it really wraps around almost every industry and almost every kind of mission that may be stated. You can go to Mars with software and you can also, you know, manage paychecks with software. So there's a very big gap in between those two things. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I think the other thing I kind of learned in that process is, you know, I have this feeling in college sometimes where it's like, oh, it's too late. I'm kind of like locked in this trajectory. But I think that anything you do, if you're going to do it well, you have to be on a path of lifelong learning. And so, you know, you can, you can sort of change direction at any point and just take it upon yourself to learn something and sort of go out on your own. And basically just be, you know, a voracious consumer of information and build aptitude to something that you would you'd kind of like to do and that you should be doing to kind of grow in whatever way you like. So I think just sort of like there is some amount of kind of self-actualization, realization of like being able to kind of do that that emerged out of my college experience. I think that was incredibly empowering. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's a great experience to have that a lot of people, unfortunately, they come out of college without that experience. So it's really good to hear that you had that experience. You know, I've actually found that a lot of founders specifically studied electrical engineering. I think that's a really interesting kind of probably just a correlation. But maybe there's some kind of cause hidden underneath there. I think, you know, maybe it's that principles first thinking that you have to do at that level in electrical engineering. I don't know. I think that's kind of interesting, though. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure. I think I think part of it is, you know, studying anything that is kind of, you know, physics based, you sort of have to have the skill, like we said earlier, to kind of, you know, build that mental model. And you can't do that. You're not going to be good at sort of understanding how I mean, it's not a very intuitive thing, right? Like how circuits work and that type of thing. So you have to be able to kind of build up this mental model. And I think that's a skill that is transferable to pretty much anything you're doing. If you're going to sort of create something or optimize something in the world. And you said you studied economics as well, correct? Yeah, I did. I think initially I sort of did that because I was interested in the business side as well. But I think the thing I learned there is that that's also just like another, you know, most of the class you take, you're just kind of building out these models for the economy. Most of the time, those are sort of like, you know, grounded in kind of shaky principles a lot of times. But, you know, I think that's kind of the way I see it. Yeah. You sort of it's another thing where you're kind of thinking about what's the model for this and what happens if we do that? Like what happens if we take that? So I think I sort of enjoyed that process and it's actually tied pretty closely to some of the kind of problem solving you do on the engineering side. Yeah, that's that's what I was going to ask you about is if you because I didn't study economics, I study it kind of as a pop psychology behavioral economics. We talk about that on the show all the time. So, you know, I see a lot of correlation I wanted wanted to know from a. Formal side, if it felt like a lot of correlation to you as well. Just the idea of those those various models, economic models, you know, demand curves and all those things. They look a whole lot like some of the stuff that you would see in a computer science class. Yeah, for sure. It's a lot of the same, you know, I mean, it's kind of based based on math. But like I said, some of the kind of basic assumptions are sometimes, you know, questionable. But you sort of, you know, some of the earlier classes, too, were less quantitative and more qualitative. So. You know, they kind of give you a bunch of rules of thumb and you'd be like, oh, but why is this the case? And they tell you sort of the mathematical principles behind that until like the later classes, which was kind of frustrating. But I think some of the best courses are like econometrics, which just, you know, gives you a thinking about like modeling based off of data and just like really apply statistics, which is incredibly useful for any discipline. And then like you said, a lot of it is just kind of like, yeah, what's what's the curve look like? You know, how does this, you know, what? What's the if these inputs change? Like how do things shift? And that's a thing which is sort of, you know, just kind of more modeling. Yeah. Yeah. How does this respond to a different input? I think that's, you know, that really is a problem solving exercise in and of itself is, you know, how does this and you carry that into every part of of your career? Really? How does this change as I change the input? What is the output? What is the effect? That's that's really a key a key factor. Especially. For software development, but in many other fields as well. Yeah, for sure. Today's episode is made possible by Linode. Linode is our sponsor for today. And with Linode, you can get up and running in just a few minutes with your favorite distribution of Linux. What can you do with Linux in the cloud? Well, just about anything you can imagine doing with Linux locally, except now you can actually network it with multiple instances. For example, you can use Linode Server. You can use a service called Node Balancer and spin up the same application on multiple instances of a Linux server. And now you can balance between all of those depending on the load that your application is taking on. If you want to run your own private internal network or maybe you want your own private Git repository, you can make those things happen with Linode. Go and check it out. Spec.fm slash Linode. And you can get started for as little as five dollars a month. Now, that may sound like it's an entry level product, but Linode also provides very high level services and products as well. High memory plans, for example, and even DevOps as a service. If you don't want to focus on DevOps and you just want to focus on your application and writing code for the business side of things and making decisions in that sphere, then Linode can take on the DevOps portion for you as a service. Go and check it out. Spec.fm slash Linode. And you can get twenty dollars worth of credit if you use that special link or if you use the code developer T 2018 at checkout. Spec.fm slash Linode. Thank you again to Linode for sponsoring today's episode of Developer T. OK, Andrew, so I have another question for you at Airtable. Let's say I am a student software developer, software engineer aspiring. I just got out of school and I'm applying for jobs. What are you looking for? What do you want to learn from a developer when you're hiring at Airtable? Yeah, so I think, you know, first of all, we look for real passion for creating, you know, anything, whether it be software or something else. So, you know, obviously it's important to have projects you've worked on, you know, maybe have a website where you've kind of like created a bunch of cool stuff or like, yeah, just any any cool project you worked on. And I think we really love. Yeah. At Airtable, you may haveension of candidates who kind of have a kind of a mix of skill sets and they are really multifaceted and we have a lot of people like this in the team where you're sort of, you know, a front engineer, but also a designer. So, yeah, like our design team, for example, our product designers are actually, you know, really good front end engineers, so they can actually build out the UI they design. kind of engineers in the team who are, you know, basically fill their role of product manager. And, uh, some, some people are very good at writing and just, I think, uh, you know, not, not just being really good on a technical level, but having some other skill you can sort of mix in with that, I think is a huge plus for us. And, uh, something that we've, we've tended to, uh, had a lot of that in our team so far, which has been, been amazing. Um, so that's one thing like, you know, definitely if, if you're, uh, you know, um, you studied CS or you, you have some technical background, but you're also really into the design side and you have like a good portfolio that, that'd be like a very appealing thing to us. Um, but generally just, just, um, you know, first of all, just people that seem, uh, interesting and, and have, uh, sort of, uh, uh, you know, just, yeah, I would say just generally, um, curious and, and, uh, intelligent and, and, um, are sort of like good at, uh, you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, good at building things. Those, those are the kind of main things we look for. Yeah. I think what you mentioned there is so true, uh, for a lot of the kind of the future jobs. I think Airtable is kind of, uh, going to be one of the companies leading the way on this, but a lot of the future jobs that developers, designers, uh, project managers, product managers, uh, that, that those jobs are going to blur the lines further and further, especially in, in the actual production roles. Um, that those, those, those lines are going to continuously blur further and further. Um, and so you, you'll see, uh, I think a lot of, uh, the best products will be, you know, built by a bunch of people who don't really have perfect titling, um, because it's just not really relevant. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. And I think, um, I think it helps to mix different disciplines as well, because I mean, one example is knowing how to, you know, being a designer who can actually, you know, do, do the engineering piece, you, you sort of, I think like, you know, taking another, um, stab at this, I guess, you know, the best architects are ones that have a very deep understanding of the material and they know that, um, you know, in order to support this building, you have to have like concrete that's reinforced in this way, or like this wood has to be, you know, arranged this, like you can only, uh, kind of solve the problems, uh, you know, the best possible way by sort of understanding the material. And I think sort of being able to, uh, understand how the software, you know, the engineering side of things when you're designing allows you to kind of make these mental trade-offs between like, yeah, we can do it this way, but, uh, you know, yeah, it's like this, this is a better way to do it. And this platform, that type of thing, like those, those are very important, even if you're just kind of not actually doing the engineering part and mostly design, but, um, yeah, it's good to get to know the material if you're doing any type of design work. Yeah. Yeah. And, and generally, intelligence in the creative sphere, I mean, I think a lot of this is, you know, shifting, uh, from one place to another. And so you'll just, I think these roles that we've had previously defined, it's strange because you're seeing it go both directions. What used to be a front-end developer, uh, now that role can is, is significantly more, um, involved. Um, and, and you can have specialists that are much more deeply involved with slice of the front end. Um, whereas it used to be, you know, you could be a web developer and that was the full job and you were expected to do the full stack and, um, that has changed, right? So you're starting to, starting to see, um, much more granular roles, but at the same time, we're, we're also seeing the need for, um, much more informed and multidisciplinary and kind of like, um, I don't know, it's weird because it's a generalist concept, um, but with a specialist skill, like a skill in a particular direction, uh, that, that needs to be supported by kind of more con maybe it's contextual awareness. I'm not really sure exactly how to articulate it though. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like, certainly as you, uh, progress in your career, you sort of start, you know, kind of connecting different pieces and you're, you know, kind of, you start like, you know, managing teams or, and with that kind of include a variety of different disciplines. And so you sort of have to know all those pieces in order to, uh, really kind of compose the best possible, um, combination of those, you know? And, and, uh, so I think like, if you, if you want to sort of grow in your career, like you can, you know, it's obviously helpful to be a very deeply knowledgeable about a few things, but also the more you can sort of pick up other pieces of the puzzle, whether it be, you know, marketing, you know, thinking about a technology company or design or engineering or, uh, kind of, you know, you know, you can, you can, you can, you can, you know, dealing with customers, like the more you can kind of master all those pieces, the more potentially you have to kind of move up in the company and kind of handle broader and broader swaths and, and put all those pieces together into the cohesive product, which is kind of not just one, one little bit of that, but the, the, the whole of, of all those, those components. Yeah. It goes right back to our component discussion, doesn't it? When you can compare, uh, multiple skill sets to each other, you actually learn more about each one. And it's a long, a long while back, I did an episode, I believe I called it skill stacking, but the, the basic concept is, you know, skill number one is almost certainly going to be more valuable if you add skill number two to it. Right. And, and even more so if, if that mixture is, um, kind of intentionally curated, for example, you can imagine that, you know, learning HTML and CSS, you're going to become, you know, a much better, a much higher value, uh, worker. If you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you also learn JavaScript. Yeah. But if you were to learn any one of those on their own, then the value diminishes, you know, significantly. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Sort of like, uh, having the, the full, you know, all the pieces individually is not as valuable as them combined into the, you know, the, the actual final product. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say that's true for almost all things that, that anything that you add is going to provide new context for the rest. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, Andrew, this is, this has been a fantastic discussion. I think I could probably talk to you for another couple hours about complexity and creating things that are useful for people. And, but I'd love to go ahead and ask you these, these final two questions that I ask every guest that comes on the show. Uh, the first question is what do you wish more people would ask you about? What topic do you want to talk more about? Um, that's a good question. Um, I think, I think we covered some of the topics, honestly, just sort of, uh, you know, talking about people. Yeah. It's sort of, um, yeah, let me think about this for just a second. I might have to edit. Um, let's see. Yeah. I think actually one of them is just general, you know, I wish more people would sort of, ask what kind of the meta lessons are of, of how to, um, you know, sort of, sort of grow as, as a person and grow in your career. And, um, obviously I, I am still pretty early on this journey, but I guess, you know, one, one is that I think you, uh, you, you know, you should just, you shouldn't be afraid of, of kind of stepping into new things and, and, um, and trying out new, new disciplines. And I think we've touched on this in a number of cases, but, um, yeah, I think like people are oftentimes, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, kind of like label themselves as one type of role or another, or, uh, being good at one type of thing in or the other. And, and, um, you know, I've always had the mindset that it's, it's, it's worthwhile to just kind of like dive in and know that you're going to be bad at something when you first start on it. But, uh, but basically it's, it's worth worthwhile kind of, uh, if you, if you want to do something and trying and not being afraid is, is, uh, a huge component to being able to sort of, uh, you know, kind of branch out from and, and really grow as a person, so i hear a lot of people who are listening to the show right now in my head asking oh well does this apply to stepping out into you know a new job or does this apply to you know how does this apply practically to me as a developer that's feel stuck yeah i think part of it is is just uh if you can get yourself excited about something uh whether it be kind of learning design or you know just learning you know how to serve for something just a random example like i think part of it is just uh you know building building the excitement and sort of uh just kind of you know wanting to do something enough where you just kind of start doing it on the side and and maybe outside your job that's tough in a lot of scenarios i know but uh you know or even in the workplace you can sort of uh start trying to get involved in kind of reading uh what what people are doing on the marketing side of the company or uh kind of you know just paying more attention to what the designer is doing and kind of trying on your own to sort of uh do that type of thing and not being like embarrassed about it i think um you know that's kind of real ways to just kind of start start dabbling initially and just kind of make sure that you're excited about something and and uh hopefully that will provide some motivation to to just kind of do it um maybe even outside of your your core responsibilities i think that's excellent advice and uh it that may have actually covered our next question but we'll see what is 30 seconds of advice that you would give to developers of all backgrounds all experience levels yeah i guess one thing that i've kind of learned over the years is that i think the best way to uh basically you know build the best things and kind of be the most productive is to uh kind of a lot of times drop your ego and i know that like in you know creative industries a lot of times there's like a lot of pride of authorship and and people think that they have this brilliant idea and are are sort of uh oftentimes reluctant to give it up or to kind of listen to other uh viewpoints and so i think like just having an open mind and taking feedback and uh basically not letting your own ideas get in the way of sort of listening and kind of curating all the best ideas from different people on the team um i think like yeah if you're going to work in sort of a in a way that's kind of open to the public and i think that's a good way to kind of give it up to people um i think that's a good way to kind of give it up to people um i think that's a good way to where you're kind of creating something with a bunch of other people um you just have to know how to sort of you know harness the power of of the group as opposed to um it basically being too tied to your own ideas and that type of thing so i think yeah just generally having an open mind and and uh kind of making sure that you're um you kind of waiting curating the best ideas in your room versus uh trying to kind of push your own agenda is is is a great way to sort of add the most value to to any um you know kind of um you know kind of um you know kind of um you know kind of um you know kind of um you know kind of um you know kind of um you know kind of um a group of people so um yes that's definitely one big one i think that's also a way for you to grow is to uh be open-minded to new ideas and points of view and perspectives and uh and think about them rationally rather than sort of letting your your ego and your um your desire to sort of like win argument or conversation get in the way and i think that's uh something that uh you know especially developers who um and engineers and designers who have very strong opinions i think sometimes that can sort of uh you know get in the way of of them progressing and and uh contributing as much as they they uh potentially could to the to a team uh environment yeah you are speaking my language right now i love this stuff uh excellent advice i think especially if you're listening to this podcast right now and you have somehow ended up in a position of leadership um you know by by whatever has happened to put you there um i think this is especially important for you um because so many times an organization uh will get kind of limited based on a leader's ego because here's the key a leader's ego ends up being the most difficult ego to challenge so like if you're if you're a young developer and you come in with an ego you're very likely to get kind of squashed like somebody's going to tell you hey you know what what you think doesn't really matter compared to what's true right which is really kind of the that's actually true hopefully you get that lesson hopefully somebody you know more tactfully hopefully somebody says that to you early so that you can say you know what you're actually right and what i think doesn't really have any bearing on on reality you know but if you're if you are in a position of leadership and under your belt then very often you become kind of your own echo chamber and the people who work with you very often have a harder time questioning that difference right unless you cultivate that kind of uh that positioning that culture that can be a toxic toxic thing if you hold on to your ego too strongly and i really like the other thing that you said andrew the idea that um i think people don't even realize how badly they want to to win a conversation yeah not in a competitive way necessarily sometimes just in a protective way sometimes i just don't want you to think that i'm dumb right and so it is normal it's normal to want that yeah it's it's human nature and uh i mean i think part of it too is the the way that you're gonna if you're in a leadership position the way you're gonna deliver the best results is by uh you know taking the best from your team and and uh kind of pushing that forward and so um you know you have to even though maybe uh you know maybe you'd rather uh as you mentioned win the argument um the sort of more uh the thing that's gonna be better for you is to sort of basically you know take the best and then um um make you know make decisions based off of that so uh yeah yeah definitely don't get married to your ideas yeah yeah excellent excellent advice andrew and thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today and i'll see you next time to talk to me and i really appreciate the work that you're doing with air table and and uh all of the concepts that you shared on today's show i think it was extremely valuable thank you so much for your time yeah thank you i really appreciate it and enjoyed the conversation and uh yeah thank you so much what if people want to follow you do you have twitter or something where they can go and and you know learn a little bit more about you uh yeah i'm uh i'm on twitter i don't tweet that much uh it's a offstead um you can just follow air table and i'll see you next time so at air table on twitter that's uh kind of most of the stuff i tweet about is what's going on with the company is uh is a lot of what what is going on with me so i would encourage you to just follow your table instead perfect there you go well thank you so much andrew great thanks a lot jonathan have a good one thank you again to andrew for joining me for the last two episodes of developer t and for sharing his experiences his insight his recommendations and uh his advice with all of the all of the awesome people who listen to this show thank you so much for listening if you haven't taken a moment to let us know what you think about developer t i encourage you to do so it's the best way to give me feedback and to help other developers just like you find the show the best place to do it is either in the google play store or in itunes thank you so much for listening if you haven't subscribed yet go ahead and subscribe in whatever podcasting app you use so you don't miss out on future episodes and thank you again to linode for sponsoring today's episode of developer t you can get twenty dollars worth of credit by heading over to spec.fm linode use the code developer t 2018 at checkout thank you so much for listening to today's episode and until next time enjoy your tea